This Ain't Nothin'
by Scar of Mine
Summary: Soda looks back on his life...oneshot & songfic.   R & R please.  WARNING: Character Death!


**Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders…**

**This is the only Outsider's fanfic I've done that doesn't have OCs of any kind. This actually has Johnny and Dallas dead, unlike my other stories. **

**WARING: Character death!**

**Please review! Thanks! Constructive criticism appreciated!**

Eighty-nine year old Sodapop Curtis was standing in the rubble of his house. A twister had come threw just hours before and destroyed everything. He looked around, seeing all his crops destroyed and the animals gone. A few moments later a TV truck pulled up, out jumped a young reporter, pulling the camera-man behind him.

_He was standing in the rubble of an old farmhouse outside Birmingham  
>When some on the scene reporter stuck a camera in the face of that old man<br>He said "Tell the folks please mister, what are you gonna do?  
>Now that this twister has taken all that's dear to you"<br>The old man just smiled and said "Boy let me tell you something, this ain't nothing"_

Soda remembered for a moment, thinking about his life, and all the hardships that had taken his family and friends away. He looked at the young man, who was not much more than a boy, and spoke to him about what really mattered.

_He said "I lost my daddy, when I was (sixteen) years old,_  
><em><span>That (car-crash) at the (Tulsa) (line) left a big old hole,<span>_  
><em><span>And I lost my baby brother, my best friend and my left hand<span>_  
><em><span>In a no win situation in a place called Vietnam<span>_  
><em><span>And last year I watched my loving wife, of fifty years waste away and die<span>_  
><em><span>And I held her hand til her heart of gold stopped pumping,<span>_  
><em><span>So this ain't nothin'"<span>_

Soda paused, trying to hold back the tears. First Micky Mouse, then his mom and dad, and then Johnny and Dallas... he thought that would be all the suffering, he thought that was all the suffering someone could take. He was wrong. Pony had been drafted not long after Soda was, Pony was sixteen then. A kid, trying to do a man's job…well, it actually wasn't anyone's job. Steve came soon after Pony and they all ended up serving in the same regiment. A few months after Steve was drafted, their regiment was called on to storm enemy banks. They did so, but at a cost. Soda lost his left hand, Ponyboy was shot in the heart and died within seconds, while Steve was shot in the arm and leg and died of blood loss.

As for Soda's wife…that was Sandy. Yes, she had left because she thought she was pregnant. That's right, thought…she really wasn't and came back to Tulsa as soon as she found out. Soda, even though she broke his heart, let her come back into his life and eventually married her. They had three children: Jonathon Dallas Curtis, Ponyboy Steven Curtis, and Marie Delilah Curtis. All of their said children had children and those children had children. Yet, even with all that family, Soda missed his wife.

_He said "I learned at an early age,_  
><em>There's things that matter and there's things that don't<em>  
><em>So if you're waiting here for me to cry,<em>  
><em>I hate to disappoint you boy, but I won't"<em>  
><em>Then he reached down in the rubble and picked up a photograph<em>  
><em>Wiped the dirt off of it with the hand that he still had<em>  
><em>He put it to his lips and said man she was something<em>  
><em>But this ain't nothin'<em>

Soda remembered everything, things he wanted to forget but knew he couldn't. Like when Darry passed away a few years ago from over-working his body as a young man. Or when Two-Bit died at the ripe age of twenty-one from over-drinking after Pony and Steve's deaths.

_He said "I lost my daddy, when I was (sixteen) years old,_  
><em><span>That (car-crash) at the (Tulsa) (line) left a big old hole,<span>_  
><em><span>And I lost my baby brother, my best friend and my left hand<span>_  
><em><span>In a no win situation in a place called Vietnam<span>_  
><em><span>And last year I watched my loving wife, of fifty years waste away and die<span>_  
><em><span>And I held her hand til her heart of gold stopped pumping,<span>_  
><em><span>So this ain't nothin'"<span>_

The reporter boy wasn't listening; he just kept asking what the 'old man' would do now. Soda was getting mad, so he said something that he hoped came through to the kid.

_"This ain't nothin' time won't erase_  
><em><span>And this ain't nothin' money can't replace!"<span>_  
><em><span>He said "You sit and watch your loving wife fifty years fighting for her life<span>_  
><em><span>Then you hold her hand til her heart of gold stops pumping…<span>_  
><em><span>Yeah boy that's something,<span>_  
><em><span>So this ain't nothin'<span>_  
><em><span>No this ain't nothin'"<span>_

The boy's mouth became agape as he stared at the man. Soda just started picking up what he could salvage… pictures, wooden knick-knacks, and memories that just kept flooding his mind.


End file.
